Higher Education Webinars

Mama PhD

(First, an incident that might be slightly off-topic but which I found amusing: ) Last night I get in my car to drive to the local high school seven blocks away for a town hall style meeting with the superintendent of our enormous school system. As I drive up our block, a car turns out onto the street directly in front of me – our new neighbor (at-home father of three young children). He turns, I follow. He turns again, I follow.

I spent this past weekend with my daughter, enjoying crisp New England weather and Parents’ Weekend festivities. Actually, we skipped most of the official festivities other than her singing group’s performances, and I spent much of the weekend visiting friends and just hanging out with Mariah, something I miss when she’s so far away.

I was surprised by some of the comments on last week’s post. First, as the fond aunt of two terrific young men in the military—one recently returned from Iraq, the other now serving in Afghanistan — I puzzled over what I might have said to suggest less respect or consideration for the young men and women who are serving our country than for those who are in college.

Statistical measures such as “mean”, “median” and “mode” are measures that give us a sense of where data are located on a number line. They are therefore, sometimes, called “measures of location”. I had to think of them this past week as Ursuline College prepares to host the meeting of the Ohio Division of the Mathematical Association of America, which, for the first time in its history, will be located at our small college campus.

Growing up in the south, my sisters and I spent years training in the 'sport' that many middle class young ladies did at the time — ballet. Despite the blister-causing pain of dancing en pointe, I actually enjoyed ballet — the aesthetics, the rigor and the exhilaration of performing for an audience. In college I was introduced to the idea that dance did not have to involve so much pain and damage to my feet, and discovered that modern and African dance are just as rewarding.

Here’s the scene: my kids are preparing to head out the door for school. I take a moment to look at my beautiful children, filled with enthusiasm to start the day, and dressed in their clothing choices. My daughter’s outfit for her morning of kindergarten really gets me. She’s wearing a deep purple taffeta dress with a velvet bodice and rhinestone-studded sash. To match her school “gown”, she’s chosen navy and maroon striped tights, a sparkly fuchsia headband, and her favorite ratty pink and blue sneakers. Before I’m aware of my reaction, my daughter looks at me and says, “Oh, Mama!

Like most people I know, I was shocked and saddened by the recent suicide of Tyler Clementi.I have to admit, though, that I am also disturbed by the intensity of expressed rage at the two students who violated his privacy. What they did was wrong, even unconscionable — but they are eighteen years old, by definition works-in-progress.When I have expressed this concern to friends, it is most frequently countered with, “Can you imagine yourself ever doing something like this? Can you imagine Ben playing such a prank?”

Anyone who has taken geometry is probably familiar with the concept of “similarity”, in which two shapes share the same angles and proportions, although they may be of very different sizes. This is often seen in right triangles, which may share the same angles but can be seen as larger or smaller versions of each other. I thought of this concept recently when I re-connected with a cousin, not in the currently common “Facebook” way but in the old fashioned way, over the telephone, as he stopped in to visit my grandmother.

The other day a friend of mine asked if we had an extra TV kicking around that we could do without. Not for her household, it turned out, for a family she met who has recently moved to our neighborhood for a year on sabbatical from Norway. The house they are living in is huge but completely unfurnished and although their three young boys enjoy sliding around in empty rooms, they really needed some basic furniture other than the few essentials they bought at Ikea.